Wednesday, 9 August 2017

Skye has a problem: it has become a victim of its own success as a tourist destination, and the some locals are unsurprisingly, suggesting that some taxpayers' money should be sent their way to try and help them sort things out. Others are talking about a "tourist tax".

Wait a minute though, how do those tourists get to Skye? Over the Skye Bridge of course. Surely it would be an easier solution to put a toll on the bridge and exempt residents from it. That way you'd get fewer tourists and the money raised could be put towards alleviating the problems caused by them.

Nothing so simple: the bridge was built under PFI and the resulting high tolls caused a revolt amongst the islanders which eventually resulted in the Scottish government buying out the operators of the bridge (who naturally made a large profit from it) and lifting the tolls. So it is unlikely that the tolls will be put back on the bridge any time soon.

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The bridge was built in the first place after years of moaning and bitching and lobbying about how long it took to get on / off the island, the expense, the unreliability of the ferries, the effect on the economy, swathes of the population leaving for the bright lights, the unfairness.... be careful what you wish for, as ever.

The Skye Bridge both confirm and confounds my contention that infrastructure spending comes after economic growth. The Skye Bridge is clearly infrastructure spending. The absence of a toll has obviously distorted its usage. But it has lead to much increased traffic on Skye. OTH now that that traffic and tourism has turned up - i.e. 'economic growth' - more (apparently) needs to be spent on 'infrastructure.

P.S I went to Skye on a family holiday about 4 years after the Skye Bridge had been built and it is a lovely bridge, and there was not much traffic on Skye. I confirm that it was in school holiday time. Must have been about 1999 and we paid the toll.

From wiki

The ferry operator, Caledonian MacBrayne, had made a profit of over a million pounds per year on the route, but observers from the BofA and later the National Audit Office noted that many locals were excused the ferry fee by ferry workers, with much of the ferry's revenue coming from the heavy summertime tourist traffic. One local told the BBC that on the day following a defeat of the English football team by their German counterparts, ferry workers had let cars bearing German registration plates travel for free. In the bridge's first year of operation it recorded traffic of 612,000 vehicles, a third more than the ferry's official numbers.

Well, whaddaya know. AS MW says just excuse the locals the toll.

And now the Skye-ers want even more subsidies (aka benefits). Point out all the above and tell them to piss off or pay for it themselves.